Timing is everything in life, but particularly in sport. Does anyone at the Rugby Football Union actually realise that?

Here we are building up to England's biggest match of the year and all the talk is of who should be made head coach on a full-time basis.

Stuart Lancaster is the interim appointment, a man appointed for the duration of England's RBS Six Nations title defence.

He is doing a really decent job thus far. England are two wins from two and Lancaster is well advanced on his mission to restore core values to the set-up.

His new-look regime has displayed openness, honesty and integrity. Discipline is better, on and off the park. So too communication.

A couple more line breaks would have been nice but given his starting point when he took on the 'caretaker' duties, let's not to be too picky.

Based on what I've seen in the last six weeks or so I would like to see him get the job for a longer term, rather than England return to square one under someone else's control.

To do that, however, his team needs to win at least three games in this championship and they have their three toughest games still ahead of them, starting on Saturday when Wales come to Twickenham.

This is a crucial point in the campaign therefore, both for Lancaster and his coaching team, and the players he has entrusted with the shirt.

Why then stick the deadline to apply for the job in the build-up to such a pivotal fixture? It is a distraction which is both unnecessary and unhelpful.

Now is not the time to debate the merits of Lancaster versus Nick Mallett or John Kirwan. It is the time to focus on Wales' juggernaut back division and how on earth to stop them.

Of course we want to know why Wayne Smith and Jim Mallinder no longer consider the head coach role suitable for them. But not now.

Now is the time for Lancaster to be left free to work out how to correct a set of worrying Anglo-Welsh trends.

In the first two rounds of the Six Nations Wales have scored six tries to England's two. Warren Gatland's side has made nine line breaks to England's two and completed 355 passes to Team Lancaster's 219.

Broadly speaking England have won games without the ball. Against Italy they just about enjoyed parity but in Scotland they had 32 per cent possession and just 28 per cent territory.

These are not statistics which will safeguard England's unbeaten record through this weekend. History might favour the home side, in that Wales have won at Twickenham only once since 1988. But the bookies and rugby experts alike do not.

There will be changes. Lee Dickson and Ben Morgan are to get their first starts at scrum-half and No.8 respectively in place of Ben Youngs and Phil Dowson.

Manu Tuilagi will also, surely, be brought into the midfield to add pace and power where so far there has been little.

Stuart Lancaster has a lot on his plate. He doesn't need to be told that. Others do.